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Episode 1335: Horsed Retirement
Date February 14, 2019 ' '''Summary ''Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Willians Astudillo’s visa problem, Doug Fister’s retirement and CC Sabathia’s retirement tour, Johnny Cueto’s late horses, the current size of Yoenis Cespedes, players’ newly coordinated messaging about baseball economics, and Aaron Nola’s extension, then answer listener emails about when baseball will cease to exist, small-market teams’ spending, Shohei Ohtani as twins, projecting power vs. contact, saving money for Mike Trout, seven-inning games, and using total bases to end extra-inning games, plus Stat Blasts about Max Muncy vs. Robbie Grossman and major award winners with no award votes in previous or subsequent seasons. Topics * How long does baseball last * Small market teams in this economic system * Twin Shohei Ohtanis * Robbie Grossman v Max Muncy * Lack of MVP or Cy Young votes outside winning year * Problems projecting power v contact * The Mike Trout effect on this offseason * Changing innings per game * Fixing extra innings Intro * Guns N’ Roses, "Dead Horse" Outro * The Yardbirds, "Over Under Sideways Down" Banter * Bryce Harper market slower than it seems * Willians Astudillo has a Visa problem * CC Sabathia retirement tour * Doug Fister’s retirement * Johnny Cueto’s dead horse * Yoenis Cespedes camp arrival * Players messaging on baseball economics * Aaron Nola's extension Email Questions * Dave: I have a question for you, maybe for one of your email shows if it’s of interest: How long do you think baseball will last? 100, 200 more years? 1000 years? 4 ever? Maybe environmental degradation or dystopian politics make the game impossible in 25 years, or maybe every starting pitcher will get Tommy John surgery at age 20 because it’ll have a 100% success rate in the future and cyborgs will be legally rosterable. Maybe kids won’t play baseball any more but the professional game will be huge in Madagascar. I ask partly because every time I hear an announcer say something like “We’ll never see anything like it again" I feel like throwing stuff. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Hall of Fame, but if baseball lasts for a thousand more years, do we think anybody is going to want to remember Waite Hoyt or even somebody like Paul Molitor? * Scott: By now we've all read Sam's latest, in which he laments that small-market teams might be out of innovations that allow them to compete with behemoths like the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers. Sam set up an example where the Rays would love to sign Bryce Harper, but could only spend up to $125 million, while the Yankees could easily pay him up to $250 million. Mine isn't an original idea, but maybe in this depressed free agent market, its time has come: Shouldn't the Rays offer Harper the entire $125 million over two or three years? Compressing a long-term contract into a very small window might even be seen as innovative. What do you think? * Matt O’Donnell (Patreon): Saw an amazing question on the baseball subreddit today. Via user RagingAcid... If Shohei Ohtani were two twins pretending to be the same person (and the whole Angels organization were in on it), would we ever notice? * Scott: I was glancing at Dallas Keuchel's Baseball Reference page and I noticed that he has never received a Cy Young vote outside the year he actually won the Cy Young (6 seasons). What's the most seasons a player has played without receiving a Cy Young (or MVP) vote outside of a season they've actually won the award? * Andrew: I was looking at the prospect profiles for Yankees hitters Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres and they both seemed to have vastly outperformed on power. Is it possible that the juiced balls and the launch angle revolution have made contact tools significantly more valuable than power tools? For example if we regressed future WAR of 60 power prospects from 1990 to 2020, versus future WAR of 60 contact prospects on the same period do you think there would be a divergence in the last couple years? * Charles: Hey guys, I had a weird thought. How likely do you think it is that the reason why there are so few teams in on Machado and Harper is because they're trying to save their money in the hopes that they can land Mike Trout in two years? Most teams can't (or won't) pay for two guys on a $300 million+ deal at a time. So maybe teams are avoiding huge contracts that will go into the 2021 season in the hope that they can somehow land Trout. * Mike (Irvine, CA): With all the talk about changes to MLB rules, please consider a more dramatic one that wasn't on the list, namely, changing the game from 9 to 7 innings. Yeah, I know it's dramatic, but I'd like to hear your thoughts about the pros and cons of such a rule change, how you see it affecting the play, etc. Here are a few things I see. Pros: The games would be faster, and the high leverage innings would be reached sooner. With 7 innings you would not have to slog through those awful 8th and 9th innings of blowout games. If you like having big-name starting pitchers and complete games, then you'd get more of them and fewer pitching changes. Cons: There would be a loss in the symmetry of nine innings, eg., a perfect game goes through the lineup 3 times exactly in 9 innings. Perhaps comparing statistics and records across time becomes a little trickier. If you like bullpen strategy like the opener, then maybe you'd not like the change. Perhaps concession sales decrease as people are at the stadium for shorter periods of time. College softball has only 7 innings, and it seems to be plenty. Could it be for MLB, too? Curious to hear your thoughts. * Thomas (Ottawa): There's been a lot of talk about fixing extra innings lately. I think we can all agree that the "start with a runner" on idea is dumb, and while Sam Miller proposed some interesting alternatives a while back, there's one idea I'm surprised hasn't been floated: break ties with total bases. The two of you mentioned on a recent episode that "baseball doesn't have partial scoring" like football, but bases are absolutely partial runs - a batter on first is literally one-quarter of the way to scoring. So here's the idea - at the end of the ninth, if both teams are tied in runs, look to total bases (i.e. how many times did a runner advance to the next base) - the team with the most total bases wins. If they have the same number of bases, play the tenth inning. Then conduct the same check. We still get extra innings in extreme circumstances, but almost certainly far less often. Plus, this further incentives hitters to play for whatever they can get in later innings, as even reaching on an error in the 11th inning of a tie game could be the deciding factor. Are there any holes in this idea? Ways it could be exploited (that would be less fun to watch)? Do you think it could work? StatBlast * Max Muncy vs Robbie Grossman stats and measurables. * Max Muncy and Robbie Grossman have very similar peripheral numbers. * Dallas Keuchel has never received a CY Young vote, other than the year he won. * Mike Flanagan played the most years with no CY Young votes outside the year he won it. * Willie McGee has the most years with no MVP votes outside his winning year. Notes * “He hasn't been able to do leg day in a while, but I don't think he's been skipping the gym” - Jeff * “Does it seem like they (the players) are colluding?” - Jeff * Jeff thinks baseball and professional sports in general will do over in 75 years. * Jeff's a real downer on the continuation of life on earth today. * “Most great players will be people nobody knows about” - Ben * “Everyone dies and is forgotten, it's one of the great reliefs of existence” - Jeff.' Links https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1335-horsed-retirement/ Link to Ben’s old story about retirement-tour gifts Link to Cueto’s first dead horse Link to Cueto’s latest dead horse Link to Cespedes video Link to article about players’ social-media messaging Link to Sam on small-market teams Link to Sam on ending extra-inning games Link to Baseball Mogul offer Link to preorder The MVP Machine Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes